Abstract
Teachers often boast about being apolitical. Their educational vocation is frequently a source of fierce pride—they teach their subject to the best of their ability; political issues do not factor into the professional equation. Teachers also cope with an increasing number of stifling demands—many believe they have insufficient time for marching in protest or attending political meetings.
Worth Striking for makes a convincing argument that all educators need to understand educational policy and enter the political fray. The authors have taught across the educational spectrum, worked for a policy and social justice center, and gained political knowledge in Chicago, arguably the most grueling crucible of bare-knuckled politics in the country. To appropriate an old Sinatra lyric but shift its geographical center, if you can make it here in Chicago local politics, you can make it anywhere.
Worth Striking for focuses on the most significant shifts in educational policy over the past decade. It helps teachers identify their educational leanings and provide a philosophical warrant for their beliefs that can subsequently be used for professional advocacy. The book also describes the Chicago Teachers Union’s (CTU) successful mobilization against Chicago Public Schools (CPS).
Chapter 1, “Introduction: Keeping a Place for Policy,” outlines the book, explaining its purpose. Chapter 2, “Chicago Teachers United,” chronicles the 2012 teachers’ strike and instigating issues leading to this action. The following chapters explore four philosophical purposes that embody CTU’s strike demands. Chapter 3, “Students, Teachers, and Schools,” advocates for small class sizes, relates to progressivism/experientialism, and promotes nurturing teacher-student relationships. Chapter 4, “Curriculum and Pedagogy,” reveals that Chicago teachers protested partially to gain curricular control. This is tied to essentialism—education fostering cultural traditions by studying important texts and ideas. Chapter 5, “Funding and Governance,” discusses teacher demands for fair compensation, and corresponds with education’s shift toward essentialism/social behaviorism, and workforce preparation. Chapter 6, “The Vocation of Teaching,” details fighting for job security and deals with reconstructionism—the facilitation of social change by teachers who need protected speech for political activism. Finally, Chapter 7, “Conclusion: The Need for a Politically Engaged Teaching Force,” advocates for teacher political engagement.
Worth Striking for effectively explains these four educational purposes and folds this seamlessly within CTU’s strike demands against the CPS. Creating these connections made union action more palatable to citizens, sharing their success broadly across Chicago. The book is less effective in providing a template for other disaffected teachers to engage in similarly successful labor protests. CTU President Karen Lewis’s impressive leadership informed her membership, unified them, and advocated for a position that resonated with the public. Faced with phlegmatic intransigent union leadership, similarly politically invested teachers may feel they have nowhere to go. This book may not be useful at directing their accumulated frustration toward constructive ends.
Although this book’s portrayal of the CTU’s work is inspirational, public education is in an incredibly compromised position. The essentialist philosophical argument has seized control of education and broader political discourse—heightened accountability, increased numbers of charter schools, stronger municipal control, broader school choice, increased testing, and more union busting are assumed to improve student outcomes. Although this may prove illusory, this reasoning has gained undeniable political currency. Politics are negotiated within a poisonous discursive space with little appetite for deep coverage. Complex and legitimate counterarguments to the prevailing corporatist agenda do not fit tidily within media’s preference for sound bites—especially during a rancorous presidential election. Although the authors longingly wish to reframe the educational debate, the headwinds are strong and the maelstrom they stir may be impossible to escape from.
Those concerned with neoliberalism’s impact on education and the society that public schools serve should read Worth Striking for. Teaching is a political act whether you think so or not—the pedagogical is the political, even if its political nature is ignored. A robust democracy requires a vibrant countervailing response to the dominant discourse to sustain itself—in this case responding to the relentless march toward privatization. This book provides educational stakeholders with intellectually honest philosophical underpinnings to inform their teaching and discussions with the wider citizenry regarding public education. This worthwhile book inspires educators to pick up this heavy, daunting, but essential, gauntlet.